Since Sanford Stadium opened in 1929 on the campus of the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, it has been reshaped, expanded and modernized into one of college football's premier venues. In recent years, locker rooms have been rebuilt, concourses widened, lights upgraded and premium seating added.
But the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Sept. 17 that one original feature of the UGA sports venue has gone mostly untouched for nearly a century: a concrete culvert, which also houses a sewer line, buried beneath the stadium.
The culvert — which channels water from Tanyard Creek east into the Oconee River — was built the same year Georgia hosted Yale in the first football game at Sanford. Nearly 100 years later, it remains largely as it was.
That's about to change, though, with a $14 million project set to overhaul the hidden infrastructure.
Athens-Clarke County and the UGA Athletics Association are preparing to repair and replace portions of the culvert and upsize the aging sewer line.
The work includes two phases. The first, recently completed near Oconee Hill Cemetery, replaced a segment that collects sewage from more than 1,300 acres, including downtown Athens and much of the University of Georgia campus.
The second, beginning in 2026, will replace 1,000 ft. of pipe directly beneath Sanford Stadium, enlarging the line's diameter from 18 in. to 30 in.
On Sept. 16, Athens-Clarke County Commissioners unanimously approved a memorandum of understanding with the athletics association to allow the project to move forward, according to the Atlanta news source.
Construction is slated to begin next spring and wrap up by the end of 2026.
In addition, Athens-Clarke County will reimburse the UGA Athletic Association for the sewer portion of the project, which is anticipated to be about $12.8 million.
"At this time, we do not expect this project to have any impact on football or stadium operations" in 2026, a UGA spokesperson told the Journal-Constitution.
Sanford Stadium's original location — a natural valley between North Campus and the Science Campus — was chosen in the late 1920s in part to reduce construction costs. Stands were built into the hills alongside Tanyard Creek, with the concrete double-box culvert constructed to let water flow beneath the stadium.
The total price tag for the original stadium was $360,000 (about $6.6 million in today's money) for a capacity of 30,000. Major expansions began in the late 1940s. Now, nearly a century later, Sanford holds 93,033 fans, the ninth-largest stadium in the country.
